


Life Finds a Way

by MoonChildEmpress



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: AU, Alien Biology, Alien Culture, Angst, Character Development, Kinkmeme, Other, alien society, tfanonkink, traumatic insemination
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-08
Updated: 2013-06-08
Packaged: 2017-12-14 09:04:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/835136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonChildEmpress/pseuds/MoonChildEmpress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>This is how things go:</i>
</p><p>
  <i>There's Starscream, beating his wings against the boulder. Then, suddenly, there's also the rainbow-bright shine of the groundbridge, which makes Starscream startle so bad he beats flat of wing against rock, trips on his own feet and dents his bloody sensitive horn, scrabling madly across the ground to hide behind a funny-shaped rock.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Then, threre's Optimus Prime.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Finds a Way

Betrayal held a foul taste-smell, flashing sickly-yellow in his electromagnetic field, and though Starscream nastily hoped it was as uncomfortable for his improvised transportation as it was for him, judging by the calm, aqua blue field intersected with sunny patches of determined yellow, Starscream's wish wasn't about to come true anytime soon.

He grudgingly admits, though, that the Prime's professional conduct ought to be lauded; Starscream didn't know many mechs who could display such calm and focus in the eve of battle, much less when holding a cargo whose field transmits unhappiness as if it was going out of style.

This is not how Starscream saw his stunt as an insurgent Decepticon ending, the glyph of Forsaken like an acidic green taint in all memories of Lord Megatron, underscored by modifiers of misused, unacknowledged and of a wrong done towards oneself. Not obsolete, but treated as such, and the Starscream who sought revenge on those responsible for the Lords' Massacre, who submitted to a new Lord right after losing his first, disregarding memories and hurts and mourning, doing his best to serve him, killing and pillaging in his name, renouncing all he was for the sake of lost happiness and of a dream shared. The one who naively thought it would all end in an overlapping geoluread blaze of glory in the middle of battle, tyrian purple mingling with crimson into a dark and bloody blanket, encompassing and warm, but who really, just hoped it could end where it began (swathed in carnation-pink, the color of the treasured and the taste-smell of the forever remembered making the field's surface slick like silk against his protoform, the sharp-edged red and the possessive, water-lillie green shrouded underneath like a hidden blade, a strong body between his legs and the burn of a hard, thick filum with its sharp cuspis breaching a path inside, burning burning melting his insides until it's nice and slippery, and wanting wanting wanting).

But that Starscream is dead. Dead like the red minibot, dead-but-alive, and distorted just so very much, unrecognizable as the being it was before - a warped, hurting little thing in the first place, and he's just so very tired of violent-purple beginnings, of not being given a choice, of having it all ripped away and being forced to find new purpose for himself; something that could justify all he'd been through, because Starscream refuses - but truly just can't - believe that it was all just a big mass of meaningless suffering and sacrifice.

And the Starscream of now - the one who came after the second metamorphosis, when the previous Starscream -who tried to cling to his past and found meaning in the service of a cause- couldn't justify abuse heaped on top of abuse complemented with a dose of disregard any more, not even to the optics of the strangely naive, strangely innocent fool he had been in the beginning, before reality stopped being a rose-tinted dream and the universe couldn't be found in the tranquil icy-blue gaze of the first -only- Lord he'd served, where Time was meaningless and Forever stood before him, the pavement of a perfect golden road that lead nowhere and everywhere - but neither of those are Starscream now, just a part of who he was, and right now Starscream knows he's dying all over again, that soon a new Starscream will take his place, the constant flow of who he is - and who he could become - radically shifting to a new course.

Because this, the certainty of change, Starscream knows. Intimately, personally, and they both have been in too much contact over the years for him to be capable of overlooking the feeling of a shriveled, hardy little thing just waiting for the opportune moment to germinate, like a nutmeg that hibernates years upon years before falling in fertile soil, roots penetrating the earth and slowly changing its environment through force, its hardy little shell adapting itself to the new and, like the soil, Starscream knows he'll be helpless to stop it. Because his life has been changing for a while now and it's only a matter of time before it starts changing him also.

The sensation of motion stops, and the sudden lack of contact startles Starscream, the absence of the field's strange comfort like a strong magnetic interference in his navigation system. If he were less disoriented, Starscream would've been more unsettled, but the effect the Prime has in other mechs is a well-known secret in the ranks, told from mouth to mouth like a dirty rumor, provoking earning and spurn in a strange combination of contradictory feelings for those who naturally bask and flourish and grow under a Leader's influence. As things stand, however, Starscream can only feel a vague sort of surprise, for even though he believed them true, their effect on him is still surprising.

Caught inside his own mind, still reeling from the lack of a strong field against his inorganic flesh, Starscream wasn't prepared for the rough grabbing of his pedes, still too deep inside his own mind to really censure his glossa and mannerisms; later, upper-back casing sore from the uncomfortable position the cuffs kept his wings in, the sensitive appendages hurting from being repeatedly beaten against the rock, field surrounded by a moonstone aura and flashing grayish green, frustrated and tired, a tiredness so deep and encompassing it's a state of being rather than a feeling, Starscream will blame the Prime for emitting frequencies so similar to those of Skyfire and messing up his processor, making him review old caches and locking him in remembrance.

Now, though, he's just trying to appear not so out-of-shorts, unzipping old caches and searching for the right place where the spaceship's other half landed, because Starscream knows his situation only too well and, having always taken just too much pride in being a Seeker, he cut off something fundamental to his survival should this circumstances ever arise, for there are no energy mines left out of the Rebel's Systems, and he has reason to suspect that the ones he ordered shut down before their deposits had run dry will be under surveillance, once word of his defection reaches Command - and since Starscream has no way of leaving orbit without notice, or arriving anywhere near where energon existed, he, basically, had no way of feeding himself. 

He simply can't afford to be unaffiliated.

And his situation being what it is, the only option that's left for him is the Autobots - and the only way to ensure they won't just discard him after he's wrung dry of all intel is to integrate himself. Right now, the only way he can do this is by being useful and friendly.

...the second of which he'll do the moment the fragging femme stops clacking back and forth in the uneven terrain. If she ever stops. How's a mech supposed to start a conversation otherwise? Clack clack clack clack "I'm not so bad, you know? Megatron, he's the evil one."

Clack. "Tell it to someone who cares." Clack. Clack.

"Like who, Airachnid?" Clack crunch whirr. Ah, jackpot. "What I wouldn't do to get my hands around her wretched throat!" 

Hands on hips, disdainful scoff firmly carved on exotic femme features, "So we agree on one thing." As if that wasn't a big enough step.

Femmes... Starscream had forgotten how delightfully gossipy they were. What he wouldn't have given to have one on board the Decepticon's ship, a proper one, who likes a little flair in their actions just as much as he and wouldn't let an opportunity for gossip pass them by; Airachnid doesn't count, he'd have been happy and things would have been just dandy had Megatron just thrown the harlot to the troops, but that mech is much too possessive to share and just too interested in new toys, which ended up giving the eight-legged freak ideas - ones that turned her into competition, instead of the ally she could've been - and though Soundwave's a good listener, he's a bit lacking in the output. Which left Starscream terribly deprived.

"Oh, you have no idea. She shows up one day, then acts like she runs the place! " Triumph floods through his systems like the electric tingle of high grade and he can only be grateful she's far enough his EM-field is only an indistinct blur when he notices the femme trying not to smile; he knows that expression. "She whispered lies into Megatron's ear, trying to take that which is rightfully mine! "

"She terminated my partner" And there you go, a femme's reciprocity; you could never have it with Soundwave, and - What? "She's taking credit for scraping him now too?"

"What?" Oh scrap. Oh scrap oh scrap oh scrap, stupid, gliching processor-vocalizer filter, couldn't have picked a better time to let something slip, couldn't you? Fragged up newspark of a whore-drone, Primus forsaken piece of faulty program, Unicron take you to... "You were there?!" And her voice is hard and sharp as ice, unfocused only because of her confusion.

"Of course not! I don't know what I was thinking!" But the slight tremble of his servos and the light tinkle of his fingers betray Starscream's nervousness, and the closer the femme gets, the louder it chimes.

"Who're you talking about?"

"No one! Who are you talking about?" Failure, wretchedly unwelcome, disappointedly familiar taste-smell, is still bitter and rotten on his glossa despite all the times the thin, forked appendage had the opportunity to feel the cloying smell, for while he may not know the femme's name, he knows she's the acting second in the Prime's division, and he's afraid that nothing he does is ever going to make up for killing her partner, even if the ground-pounder was already a walking scrap-pile anyway, either by Megatron's hand or by the wounds inflicted during his capture, because another thing femmes excel in is holding a grudge, and going to the base of the enemy were the Second in Command holds a death against you would be worse then going back to Megatron.

So Starscream does the only thing that's left for him, conniving and staling when she gets aggressive, until he's sure she's not just giving him the key as a ruse, until he has the advantage, because his protoform feels weak and brittle, his struts incapable of supporting his weight, and Starscream can already feel the specter of hunger looming in his future, embracing him like a chastising parent enfolds an errant child in its arms, making his mind sluggish and slowly fading the world away until all that's left is Void, meaningless and grey but for the disorienting, terrifying feeling of failing systems and of a anthropophagos frame, protoform cannibalizing itself with vicious purpose, trying to maintain functionality for as long as possible and self-destructing in the process.

So he runs, and the only reason he doesn't fly away is because he can't.

 

***

 

"The damage looked bad, but it was a clean snap, which allowed for it's quick repair." And Ratchet is practically vibrating with excitement, diagnosis programs coming online and having to be manually shut down, because for all that he's itching to start analyzing the priceless artifact from a long lost age of knowledge, he understands now is not the time. "You should regain your full range of motion before long."

"And... Arcee?"

Ratchet pauses, turning to look Optimus in the eyes. He, simply, has been by his leader's side for too long to be fooled by the calmness in Optimus' field, because although there are no characteristic ripples signaling distress, a calm pond with no alarming colors, he was there when Orion became Optimus, and the Archivist became Keeper; certainly, were it anyone else, they probably would've just interpreted his field and have been certain that it told the truth, for the younger bot is flawless in his technique. But Ratchet isn't just anyone, and though the field tells him the exact same thing it would tell any other mech - because Optimus didn't follow the more common path of just training his field to transmit different signals to the mech's emotions; instead, the prime taught himself out of transmitting those signals he didn't wish known - even through this, Ratchet could still see his leader's trepidation, not through his field, the usual way mechs communicate their emotions, but through the subtle physical signals, the almost nonexistent pause before their comrade's name.

And Ratchet wonders, sometimes, at the way things are. Because he had actually no idea why he was the one who always knew better when the subject was their leader's emotional state. He always thought it must've been because he knew Optimus the longest and that he'd somehow developed an extra sense or something - and it drove them both nuts, Ratchet because he couldn't find the cause or even that illusory sense's source and Optimus because it broke the mask he tried to use to keep up morale in spite of his personal problems - and there were many, at the beginning. So it stupefies Ratchet that he only understood what he subconsciously did when they arrived on Earth a decade and some odd years ago, when he came across the concept of body language and started connecting the dots.

"She's rather resilient, for a two-wheeler. But she owes her speedy recovery to the fact the injuries were not life-threatening, merely incapacitating. Strange, considering who she was fighting; Starscream generally goes for critical areas." And Ratchet doesn't bother trying to hide the inquisitive light green in his field. Projects it a little, actually, augmenting it's intensity to make sure Arcee will feel it, because while Optimus may not be comfortable with asking the questions, even going so far as not requiring a report - a subtle message that he doesn't want anyone touching the subject - Ratchet is perfectly capable of ignoring the signs. Optimus, after all, never explicitly prohibited it; also, Ratchet's not really questioning her, is he? He's just alluding to the subject in the femme's presence. That he knows it'll be enough to make her talk is of no consequence.

Optimus' quick look and slight tightening of mouthparts, the usually relaxed angle of his goatee sharpening, tells Ratchet his Prime is Not Amused, his SIC should know better, as an officer he ought to settle an example and behave for their team. 

Ratchet thinks the one who should've known better is his Prime.

"Starscream was the one to kill Cliffjumper." The strong voice of the team's TIC, unusually mellow, diverts the two mechs' attention to the femme, also capturing the interest of Bumblebee and Bulkhead. With her back to them, sitting and with dropped shoulders, it's only more apparent how small and fragile she truly is when compared to them, and why the Council thought it best to have femmes prohibited from being actively involved in their society. But the Council and the laws that provoked the schism between mechs and femmes in Autobot Society are gone, have been gone for a long time now, so this train of thought should not to be borne.

Force of habit, Ratchet justifies to himself, and is thankful Arcee can't read his thoughts. The consequences would be... unpleasant.

"He... I don't know how the subject came up."

Arcee swallows, trying to somehow easy the tightness in her throat. "I'd promised 'Cliff I would avenge him." Curling tighter upon herself, field a grayish, lifeless pink, another tight swallow followed by a humorless smile. 

"Frag, I don't even remember how he convinced me to give him the key, slagging sliver-tongued mech." And the high, unsteady laugh she gives before saying it is startling to both those who hear it and the one who gives it, because, even though she tries to hide it, Arcee's voice is a bitter, curdling little thing when talking about Starscream. "I promised I'd avenge him at his grave. I promised - I thought settling scores should allow me to move on, Optimus; I thought it would. Instead, I chased away our only hope of winning this war anytime soon."

Approaching the berth in his customary languid way, the one that was dignified and somehow conveyed infinite care and patience, Optimus sat beside his best soldier, the one he trusted to take over command in the field should any harm prevent him from leading the team. "Wisdom cannot be granted, Arcee; it must be earned. Sometimes, at a cost." Optimus, always strangely tactile, laid his hand over Arcee's shoulder, only to be quickly shrugged off, for the femme was never welcoming towards any touch that could be interpreted as caring.

The bullet-fast, sharp spike of irritation on her field wasn't missed by anyone, but with the customary ease of those who have conflicting personality traits and still trust their survival in each other, the mechs present merely ignored the sharpness in her tone when the reply came.

"Then I wish I hadn't earned it, Optimus. That I'd just followed your orders like the good soldier I'm supposed to be." the words, bitting and cutting, left Arcee's vocalizer in a monotone, optics downcast and staring at nothing.

Well. That is quite enough; Ratchet better interfere before Optimus can find a logical way to blame himself for this. "Let's not cry over spilt milk, shall we? That's water under the bridge." But that just stopped their - depressing - conversation; what he's aiming for is to make them stop this line of thought, the strange tug of war mechanoids of all frames find themselves dragged into when the Prime tries to assign blame to himself even though, clearly, it was their fault. Maybe he should start bitching about supplies? Absolutely awful, the situation, but none of the Bots will take him seriously when he does, so that's just what they need. "Let's concentrate on more important things, shall we? As you well know, supplies are dreadfully low, so could somebody explain to me why you abandoned one of the cuffs out there?" Slag. Not the angle he was aiming for, but they are rather difficult to make, and Ratchet would be relieved to have them back, at least.

Bumblebee is, predictably, the one to respond - he was, after all, the only one fully functional at the time; what is not predictable at all is the answer, for it appears Starscream - in his haste to scape - apparently forgot about the bindings on his wings or, at least, judged them less important than getting away. Maybe he thought he could go back and retrieve the key when the Bots went away, maybe he didn't think at all, but the fact remains that, since the bots took the key, chances are that the flier is still bound and grounded, because, shameful supplies or not, his cuffs are damn good and Ratchet is nothing if not extremely well-prepared; the benefits of thinking ahead are numerous, and though he could never get the troop's mindset to incorporate this as their own, that didn't stop him from installing a tracker inside those cuffs.

Quickly hacking into a satellite - the ones approved by the government were not good enough, the mountains ranges interfering with the radio waves, and Ratchet is not above a little insubordination to get what's best for his team, even if the Prime would disapprove - Ratchet memorizes the coordinates while relaying the situation to the others. Time, he explains, is of essence; there's no telling if Starscream got rid of them yet, but if he didn't, there may still be a chance to get him and bring him here.

Optimus, they decided, was the best mech to go. In all the group, he and Ratchet were, perhaps, the only ones against whom Starscream held no personal grudge; the only ones who could negotiate, right there if necessary, the terms of his surrender and possible incorporation into the Autobot's Ranks. But in the end, Optimus is the more charismatic and likely to get a positive reaction; Ratchet's only the grumpy mech who'll throw threats and complicated words at the flyer until he gets a 'yes' - and that, he is told, is no way to welcome new arrivals or to convince someone of something.

Ratchet is not so sure; he thinks it's a superb way. It works, at least.

(He tries to ignore the voice that tells him Optimus is the best choice not because of his diplomatic prowess, but because of his physical adroitness. That voice - once little but now so loud glossing over its poison feels like the difficult, hard task of unlearning a truth - turns Ratchet into something ugly, something that wants to hurt those who are weaker and defenseless against it so it'll feel strong and not so powerless anymore, so it can be the better one. That, Ratchet tells himself, is not him. This argument, though, hasn't worked in a long time now, so he does the only thing that's left - pretends it never happened in the first place, that there's nothing wrong - and carries on as usual.)

 

 

***

 

 

This is how things go:

There's Starscream, beating his wings against the boulder. Then, suddenly, there's also the rainbow-bright shine of the groundbridge, which makes Starscream startle so bad he beats flat of wing against rock, trips on his own feet and dents his bloody sensitive horn, scrabling madly across the ground to hide behind a funny-shaped rock.

Then, threre's Optimus Prime.


End file.
